


approximately 9000 words of me being a simp over tokyo ghoul

by AAAStarboyAAA



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: IT JUST DOESN'T, M/M, and i will take all responsibility for that, dear god why am i writing tokyo ghoul fanfiction in the year of our lord 2020, i don't feel like tagging characters for one line, i feel like i'm writing hamlet i stg, i have read the manga so shut up, it's like literally just tragic simping, plus some juicy character development, really it's mostly just kaneki and hide, sorry :re does not exist, this is tokyo ghoul you know what you're getting into, tw let's go home, warning i'm a hide kinnie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27436420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AAAStarboyAAA/pseuds/AAAStarboyAAA
Summary: I really just like hurting them alright I made my little brother watch this show bc quarantine but shhhh don't tell him how emotional i got over it AGAIN1-Sunflower Boy: kaneki simping over hide2-Take it Out on Me: hide simping over kaneki but i swear it's different3-Within Those Words: me thinking really hard about that one time when hide asked kaneki if he was eating alright4-Monstrosity and Kindness: me shamelessly being emo over kaneki being nice to naki that one time this doesn't have anything to do with hide i just like look at him dude fucking ate the guy and he's like "don't cry it's ok" why i just
Relationships: Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise/Nagachika Hideyoshi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	1. Sunflower Boy

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's bad ettiquete to diss your own work in the notes but holy fucking shit this is so dumb and i own up to it   
> i wrote these all in free verse bc i know if i didn't the sentences would have like 17 commas each i stg they're just monologues   
> I have no shame left i will publish these it's just me trying to capture the spirit of an amv without making the amv hhfhdsdsh   
> but I scroll through the tokyo ghoul tag on here just long enough to feel like my thing wouldn't be the cringiest one on here   
> lmao you're all so valid

SUNFLOWER BOY

_You are my sunshine-_

A choked sob corroded my mouth  
A desperate cry breathing in and out holding you to my chest  
Snowy air freezing my breath and obscuring the world in fog  
Stars above me unforgiving bright, Hide, impaling me in truth  
Hands shaking desperately to pull you up before you fall to the cold.

My sunflower boy  
Adorned in death pale snow  
My frozen hands aren’t delicate enough to save you  
And in the dark shattered coffee shop embraced in flames I kneel and weep  
For what I became to protect you is holding your bright yellow petals in my hands

_My only sunshine-_

Beautiful, you always were, from the day I met you  
A thousand years ago in kindergarten  
A bright pink stain on your rosy cheek, smile wide and confident  
In garish colorful resolution, you ran to the back of the class  
And stuck that smile into my life.

Your hair wasn’t bleached then but even in blackness the sun shone so bright  
And I was so small and I had no words to say  
Pale face turning rosy in the light  
A small grubby hand reaching out in friendship  
You were new, you said, you needed a friend but I

I’d been so on my own, no father and a mother working so hard  
You held me  
Just a kid offering a lego, with that magic ability to be everything I’d need  
And when everyone loved you you chose the small boy in monochrome  
To give me color

You loved me  
And held my hand when I felt so alone  
Because it turns out flowers are the only things that make death beautiful  
Yellow, bright yellow warming the sky and opening up the world in front of me  
When all I could see ahead of me was the freezing fear of being alone  
You made me want to be

_You make me happy, when skies are grey_

It was you, it was always you  
And you never had to but you chose me again, again, again  
Sprinting to my seat and running me over like a bowling ball  
talking loud and waving your hands around, bright, looking me in the eyes

You acted as if it was selfish but you deserved to complain to want me around  
When I was the one who needed you more than anything else in the world  
Reaching out a hand pulling me from the dark  
Holding out a flower crown and placing it in my hands.

Hide, did you know?  
That your warmth solely kept me alive that winter  
Did you offer that blessing knowing and smiling and ruffling my hair  
That without it I’d have withered and died in solitude  
Did you know how much you are?

We were always so close, sleeping over wrapped in each other like yin and yang  
You keeping me awake until dawn watching christmas movies in august  
Letting me fall asleep in your lap and laughing at my sleep soft face  
Knowing exactly where your home was

Two halves of a whole but my half was only yours  
You offered me worth like a cookie in your lunch halving it with your hands  
And handing the bigger to me  
Sweet and soft and intimate like only a child can be

But was I still a child, when you pulled me through middle school  
When you grew and you bloomed and became   
So beautiful I couldn’t stand it

You  
With your stupid humor and your outgoing pride and the jokes that made the day  
With that yellow sweatshirt you started wearing   
Saying you’d embrace being a bumblebee and laughing and dancing down the halls  
Racing ahead while I stood floating in the wind behind you  
Your sweetness leaving marks on me

Drowning in something so indescribably lovely when we swung our legs on your roof  
And you asked me if I’d eat someone I loved because it was a joke back then  
Hey Kaneki, ahaha, would you, you know, would you...  
And I laughed and I found myself hot and red when you leaned in

Life was held in the moments when you dared me to skip math and I did  
Heart racing with nervous delight forgetting the world  
And laying in fields of flowers not knowing the answer  
When you turned and asked me how you’d look blonde  
When the kids teased me because I’d never been kissed

So you kissed me  
Lightly holding my chin and looking up smirking  
“There. Now you’re mine.”  
And I was.

I hadn’t realized you needed me too  
But oh, when you were vulnerable  
Ninth grade and you’re failing algebra and you broke up with a girl  
And I felt like a beautiful person when you came to me to air your grievance  
And clung to my sweatshirt and cried and thanked me  
The place above my heart your hand touched, skipping a beat

How blessed I felt to see the tears dry on my chest and my words make your smile  
And a feeling that wouldn’t go away, binary suns, resplendent in color.  
You always came back to me.  
You always came back to me, when I was scared, when I was hurt  
When I could do nothing but hold a book and hide

Always at my side, holding out a sunflower and pinning it to my hair  
Waving and shouting and clapping so loud I could hear you onstage  
You didn’t care that I just stood there paralyzed  
You clapped until I could speak  
You knew it.

You knew you were the thing giving me life  
You knew how I needed you and you never hesitated to offer yourself  
Giving me your wings to fly  
Heart so open, eyes warm and full, rays of gold lighting upon me  
And knowing you never asked for a single thing in return  
You said I was that thing

And we graduated, and I’d helped you so much you met me at a 4.0  
I don’t mention the weighted classes because you deserved it  
“You’re a lifesaver, Kaneki!”  
It made the year for me

And then there was college  
I only had the scholarship to take classes, not the dorms  
But you wouldn’t let me tell you you were too kind to share  
Making me strong enough to pull the hands over my eyes and look out upon the world  
Taken for granted, maybe, just how lovely it was to lay with you  
There wasn’t a secret you couldn’t pull out of me.

I never thought that could ever be a problem-  
Not like this.  
Was I that transparent or were you just too bright  
Not to see right through me  
From moment one

I wasn’t used to hiding, not from you  
I didn’t want to  
You were the only one that I never could from  
But when I looked to a mirror in horror and I saw a darkness in my eye  
I no longer deserved that sun  
Hiding was the only thing I could think to do

What was I supposed to do, Hide  
I was so scared you’d think me a monster  
I was trying so hard not to become one  
But it only made me hungrier, and it hurt

I tried to hold back and it ended with your blood on the street  
And the cursed thing in me wanting you  
Wanting you, in all the wrong ways  
How could you say I should be kind to myself?  
How could I stand your gaze upon me?

You never got mad  
When I started to break away  
And you questioned it too little  
But you seemed so sad, I’m sorry  
You followed me when I worked at the shop  
And you’d stay there my whole shift and talk

And Hide, I can’t express how hard it was for me  
To want you there so bad when it would only end  
I’m sorry  
I left bloodstains on the walls of Anteiku

_You'll never know, dear, how much I love you_

I didn't get to say goodbye

Sunflower boy with your bright messy hair in the wind  
Freckles in summer that hid when leaves fell  
An effortless beauty like god in mismatched clothes  
Your smile in the coffee shop and the hasty wave you gave  
You said you thought you might make it back before my shift ended  
To walk me home

I can’t imagine what you must have felt  
But I  
I in the dark stolen away in the sickening smell of pain  
I couldn’t see your face  
That bright, shining face  
Splattered with blood for every wavering number I called out

And- and I was breaking but at least it was only me and not-  
But what if it was, what if it was, what if it was you  
Religion I desperately tried not to lose when my throat had ripped itself  
Too far to scream  
All my tears fallen grown scared of hands

My ears bleeding mind failing carnage where my brain should have been  
There was blood on your smile and I couldn’t look up  
What if they got their hands on you-  
How could I live  
If I couldn’t save you

I’d seen everything adorned in crimson but you  
Oh please not you  
So I gave in  
I gave in and I became so ugly, Hide  
How could I ever show my face to you 

Dear god, how could you see that mournful white  
How would you react  
Something funny, perhaps, something joking about me being old, but truly  
I felt like there was a thousand years between us  
But no, no, you followed me, there are shadows under your eyes  
You’ve seen it too

Why did you have to know? This whole time?  
You’re good at it  
And that’s what I hate  
Because I tried to push you away so you’d be safe  
But I failed and I see the same tired depth on your face

When I grew into the name eyepatch  
Betrayed the claim of peace to that officer I cried to  
Claimed one S and then another  
Stronger stronger stronger because I still couldn’t fell fate  
If it drove me mad but-

I tried with all my hopes not to be found  
Tried not to cry over the thought you’d think me dead  
I was trying to save you-  
You couldn’t get close, you couldn’t see my face  
Because what would I do if you saw

Please, not the sun, don’t look at me  
I could beg, but you knew  
Your hands ran across every curve of my broken heart  
And you followed me into the world of blood  
You’re too kind  
Fatally so

It’s so cold and I can’t help but see it again  
Knowing your eyes were on me  
The horrors I thought so separate from the haven containing you  
But you were there the whole time  
Determined to hurt just as much as me

You knew it when I wore an eyepatch  
And you asked if it was a fashion statement  
And you knew it wasn’t but you never tried to pull it off  
Just because I wanted it covered  
You’d turn a blind eye-  
Even when I-

And you so human abused by a ghoul and lying there clinging to his leg  
Trying to stop him from hurting me  
You’d try to save me, to free me to bear such monstrous hunger  
How could this boy who knew me my whole life  
See sky blue inverted in crimson red and not waver a second to give me your smile

To not think of your own well being but only mine  
Mine when I turned away and accepted not to be human  
How could you hear what I did  
And only worry if I’d gotten away  
When I tried to keep you in that precious innocent light but you kept searching relentlessly  
For a way to help someone who’d corrupted far past your reach

But Hide, I…  
I tried to pretend  
Like I’m strong, like I’m confident, like I know I’m right  
But you saw right through me

And I’m not  
And I wasn’t  
And I couldn’t realize you’d be stupid enough to still love me  
When I’d walked so far away.

You shouldn’t have seen  
You shouldn’t have kept my secret close  
You shouldn’t have tried to follow  
Or find me when I tried like hell to be lost  
You should have forgotten about me-

_“Rabbits can die of loneliness!”_

But you knew the risks and you knew what I’d done  
And you followed me  
You followed me into the fight I’d lost the will to stop  
When I realized no peace would ever exist

And   
In a burden taken freely under moonlight  
You  
 _Don’t even regret it-_

And I’m screaming your name  
Because you held me bleeding in the darkened coffee shop  
And told me you’d known  
And told me you didn’t care

Looking into both my eyes with no hesitation, no holding back  
And you served me coffee and smiled until I was crying  
Because you were there in that uniform  
The uniform the same as fifty I’d spattered in blood  
And you smiled like nothing was wrong and held me so close

Shaking  
Warm  
Desperate, grateful, shattering me just like you’d wanted  
Because how could I have forgotten you?  
In the hurricane of madness and gore, I broke and broke and broke and  
Grew back worse desperately reaching for something I could save

But I failed  
And there you were, in that uniform, and it was  
Too dark to see the hot, wet blood staining your fingers  
And dripping into the coffee you held out reassuringly and placed in my hands

Hide, how could you

I _drank_ that  
And it tasted so sweet  
How could you

Grip the black front of my Aogiri uniform and collapse  
‘I fucked up a little bit back there’ you say like it’s a paper cut  
It’s not a fucking paper cut and why did you smile  
And I was too lost in the overwhelming, unconditional affection  
I failed to see that it was too bright

A bright place where we smiled, so tired  
Laughing and crying and in limbo with nostalgia your hand is so soft  
The sun shining in beams through the window and sunflowers sitting on the table  
Bright yellow like they hadn’t been cut and put in a vase to make me happy while they die  
In glorious, blurry peace where we could pretend hurting hearts could heal  
It’s so beautiful how did I think it was real

You stood and you smiled and you did it for me when   
All you probably wanted to do was fall  
Trying to comfort me, trying to make me happy  
Trying to keep that imaginary moment and be strong for me  
And you did it for me  
As long as you could

But you’re leaning on the table and you try to close our distance  
Reaching out and your smile turns into a grimace  
Feet on the ground weak like you’re dancing but you fall  
Faltering and fluttering and dropping petals  
Into my arms

No, no, no, I’m screaming dropping to my knees pulling you up

_Please don’t take my sunshine away_

But you only curl into me as the lamenting song screams  
So softly  
Touch affectionate and light and warm  
Curved pink lips leaking red and turning up   
And your breathing isn’t right holding to my chest

I’m sorry, you say  
But no, why why why-  
When I threw away everything to save you and you  
Have to try to one up me  
And I. I couldn’t. And I couldn’t do it Hide I  
Fought and I fought and I killed and I ate and I cried and

You come to me when you should have let me go  
So desperate to pull me from the dark and make me cry onto your shoulder  
And you did  
You won  
You’re smiling  
And it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen

Your bright, golden smile like late afternoon light  
Resplendent in color and falling leaves  
The smile I took for granted like oxygen since I was a kid  
The rose pink on your cheeks became the color of love  
Splattered a deep requited crimson

Now, you have to tell me.  
You choose now in the broken glass and the moon and the snow  
Everything too beautiful eating away at my heart  
You choose now  
To tell me you love me

And you forgive me and you don’t care  
Limp and calm in my shaking arms  
And my blackened nails like gems running through your hair

Sunflower boy in full bloom  
In full bloom in the cold and I can burn the snow all I want  
But you’re bleeding out onto me  
Bright yellow flower fading to grey in my hands  
Bright golden sun dying in magenta, violet, blue

To tell me with those bloodied, picked apart petals  
He loves me  
The sun is fading  
And it chooses me to hold its hand

And I’m screaming, I’m shouting, my voice warps in desperation  
I thought I was Hamlet  
But my sweet prince  
Why couldn’t it be me?!  
Like it was supposed to be-

I tried to die for you but you jumped the gun  
And dyed the sky red for me  
The stars are so far above whispering and speaking and screaming  
 _O y a s u m i_

But no matter what I do  
No matter what I turn into  
No matter if I break myself I can’t pull you from the stars  
I’m reaching out my hand and you’re falling and

You’re gracing me with that last ray of golden sun  
Picking yourself from the frozen ground and pinning that sunflower  
In my snow white hair  
Comforted by a monster’s warmth

Open and overwhelming and spilling all over  
Holding out your hand and knowing it, accepting me  
With every breath asking to save me  
“Let’s go home.”  
And you fall

I can’t even say what happened  
If it was the coffee cup crashed on the ground  
There’s pain all around me but the only thing I heard was the thump  
It’s bright  
And on your face is reflecting fiery light  
The slightest motion softens your face into a smile

My tainted tears like curtains on your eyelashes  
Sunflower boy, why?  
I could cry all I’d like but I couldn’t try to blame it on you  
It was all me  
Heart caving in, letting all I’ve deflected burn me  
I deserve to hurt

So I’ll take up the weight like a mountain upon my shoulders  
You’re so heavy and though I’m no longer human  
I never thought it would be you I’d have to carry  
In my arms everything has gone silent  
But I’m still here in the deafening flames  
In the beauty of frozen tears and clouded breath I can’t see yours

I’ll live for my mistake  
Stand with your weight held so close and step into the cold  
Footsteps in the snow for all your light could have been  
Desperate want pulls me to the ground in a field of flowers but I stand

Isolated in the stars, it’s too late  
The bridge burning beneath me as I drape the world in white  
White is the color of death  
White is the color of opening my hand and letting those petals fly  
Amidst the snow

In the memories of a sun I’ll never see again  
Tears so warm leaning into your ghost smile aching

_You’ll never know dear, how much I love you_

I’m sorry  
Knowing all that I am I can’t run away  
All that I’ve done and all I’ve caused and all I hurt trying to save

You made me realize how much it hurt  
How I was wrong  
I needed peace and I needed the sun  
And I needed your embrace  
But it took too much to make me see

There’s a circle of light, blue and red  
All that stand bright on the other side of the war  
Hide, so stubbornly right  
I can’t fight anymore  
Why did you have to do this, to show me

Haven’t you gotten what you wanted  
As I step shuddering into the harsh light bearing my heart  
Like I grew so scared to do  
And it’s all for you

Humans  
See my tears for one of yours  
Holding myself out and laying you in the snow  
Desolate trust  
In the reapers that hunt me  
To take someone I can no longer help

Your face is ashen stained, color washed out  
Monster and human made you a martyr  
To end their war  
To dry my tears  
Sunflower boy, you’ve saved us all

And the whole world will cry for your petals in the wind  
Silent bearing my greatest weakness  
Asking the impossible I long since lost  
Please

_Don’t take my sunshine away_


	2. Take it Out on Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one really had my friend calling me out on being a hide kinnie down though

TAKE IT OUT ON ME

Kaneki, I’m here

Standing on the bridge dropping my bike at my side breathing in fire  
Knuckles numb from the wind and leaves swirling at my feet  
Pulling binoculars out of my bag and numbly pushing my hat up to see  
Hands sticking to the cold metal bars and leaning out in debilitating ache  
I can see you

I redyed my hair, Kaneki, you like it?  
When I wear this hat it looks longer too  
Maybe it is, it’s been a while  
You can tease me for having a bastard mullet  
But you can’t see me

I told you I had class but I didn’t  
And it was funny because it should have been obvious  
To tell what the surprise was  
I guess you were pretty preoccupied, I don’t blame you

I was gonna put a streak of pink in it too  
Just to make you laugh  
Or really, what’s a better signal of distress  
But you didn’t come home so I got worried, didn’t do it  
I got worried and it’s been a week  
So I’m here

I refocus at first because that can’t be you  
Atop that building I scoured a thousand reports and after so much nothing  
They say you’re here but  
The halo of Tokyo dusk darkens around you but black is not white  
And you’re the opposite

Kaneki, I know who you are  
Kaneki, you’re the calm, the soft and the kind  
Black hair, neat, white shirt, tucked, black pants, long  
You’re the nerd who still talks with your sophomore english teacher  
The kid who’s so scared to offend you said sorry to someone who punched you  
You’re someone who’d cry at a papercut and I love that for you

But I see your face and it’s you, from so far away  
Kaneki, you’re the storm, the ripped and beaten  
Your pants are tarnished white and they don’t cover your legs, Kaneki  
Aren’t you cold  
I’ll lend you my coat, I’m here

And your shirt is black, short sleeved with a ragged collar  
Leaping around, loose, you’re nearly flying in combat  
I know it’s you, I know every curve and mark and outline of your face  
You with one eye red, one eye grey, and you’ve gotten good with those   
Well to put it bluntly  
Glowing tentacles of yours

But your hair  
Why is it white?

Damn, did you double surprise me with the hair?  
Was I wrong and did you get it the whole time  
Try to surprise me, Kaneki?  
But I can’t be surprised by you  
It’s too beautiful to be fake

And hey, I say  
You stylin it up? Very nice, Kaneki,  
But dude, you could have just dyed it, really  
Real white hair costs too much  
You’ve been gone too long and I came too late  
And I’m trying not to cry

What did they do to you?

I couldn’t pull you back and they did something irreversible  
Aogiri. I know, Kaneki, I’m not stupid  
You’re fighting Aogiri Tree  
That violent ghoul organization that’s classified?  
I guess you haven’t been keeping up with me, much, I laugh

I got myself into the CCG, in a way  
But I figured out Anteiku myself  
Don’t worry, Kaneki, I wouldn’t tell  
You all looked so scared when I said it then  
Sitting with my legs crossed in your shop, I’m a human  
I’m a human sitting there knowing what I can’t see

And you know   
I should have realized humans could never make coffee that good  
It’s your art, really, and it’s lovely, what ghouls can do  
I’m impressed how fast you picked it up

I don’t want to hurt you, hope you know  
I only want to help you  
But I’m only human  
And when I came back to the shop there was blood on the walls  
And before I could find you again here  
You’ve gone and gotten yourself hurt.

I stare at that hair from afar  
Thin, angelic, fragile and faded, flying in the wind and matted in grime  
You feel like a ghost but you’re not Kaneki, you’re alive  
Have you forgotten that?

Kaneki, you’re barefoot  
Swinging bruised legs at a purple-haired ghoul  
And your feet are red but not just from the cold  
Red, a sickly red, a raw red, like you grew new feet altogether  
Held on with these scars on your ankles that make my face twist in pain

You’re a mess  
And your nails are black but they don’t shine  
I can probably guess Aogiri didn’t paint them like  
I don’t know  
They just took you in and went mandatory emo  
I shouldn’t be making jokes about this Kaneki what the fuck happened

And I say, you’re not a ghost  
You have a life and you can lose it  
Your body is full of blood to be spilled and you act like it won’t matter  
And you’re standing  
And you’re fighting  
And your face is a hardness I’ve never seen before  
Like nothing hurts at all

Kaneki, I’m here

The winged boy, you’ve won to him  
You beat him far more than you had to  
And that’s incredible and impossible and  
Scaring me because

You need to fall to pieces  
You need to scream into a pillow and sob  
You need to shiver and weep and nurse your wounds  
Because you’re not a ghost

But something has happened to you  
When you were always so quick to fall apart  
What are you saying  
You think after all that, something like this hurts?  
Of course it does  
Stop pretending  
No pain will heal if you ignore it

They found a way to break your spirit  
Kaneki-  
You’re standing and you saved the girl man good for you  
But boy  
Wasn’t she coming to save _you?_

So how was your week, Kaneki  
No, I'm not scared of the answer  
I spent mine trying to find you  
But when you start to walk away it seems you don’t want  
To be found

You’re walking away like you’re not stepping through snow and broken glass  
With those red bare feet  
You’re not supposed to be strong.  
Because damn it Kaneki  
Strong  
 _Hurts._

I don’t wanna be strong either

I want to sit on the couch with you and watch the same studio ghibli movie  
Seventeen times in a row  
I want to badly sing along to 2000s songs   
And pretend I’m not singing them to you  
I want to go out and run around in a park and come back exhausted  
Leaning on your shoulder

And I want to hold your hand and damn it Kaneki,  
I’m sick and tired of pretending I don’t want to kiss you  
I miss you  
I need you and I’m so afraid of finding you gone

You always praised me, Kaneki, but I’m just a loud kid in a hoodie  
Waiting for my joke to make you laugh  
You can call me the sun but  
You’re the one that makes me shine

I don’t wanna be strong either  
But I guess I’ve got no choice  
You’ve been through enough, let me take a little  
I don’t care what you do

You’re beautiful, with your easy blush and soft eyes  
How you hold your books, the way you look in my clothes  
It’s only fair, Kaneki, you know how often I steal yours  
And it’s perfect since we’re near the same size  
And you buy all your clothes too big anyway  
I’m made for you

I can bowl you over and joke how I can’t survive a day without you  
But I can’t  
I’m your emotional support bastard but damn if I don’t be having feelings too  
One time your phone broke and you didn’t respond to my texts for a day  
And I fucking cried  
So god help me, I don’t want to be strong  
But I don’t want to let you stay in pain

So what am I supposed to do?  
When all you want to do is run into the flames  
I’m learning to realize what you need  
Not forever but now

It won’t look good, that I’m standing here when I keep waiting   
For you to turn around but you keep walking away  
I’m here  
Do you need my help  
I can see you’re hurt

When the blue and red lights are coming closer you won’t want them  
To see me here  
So I grab my bike and disappear  
But I’m still searching through the sirens

I wouldn’t hate you, please  
It hurt to realize when you started to wear that eyepatch   
You thought I would  
I’m not stupid and I could feel your pain from across the room  
From across a phone call, a text, your hand over your chin  
You weren’t fooling me but I don’t care

You tried to save me, back then  
It wasn’t your fault he hurt you  
You’re not evil for feeling the desire to stay alive  
And I wanted to tell you  
But I was hurt, only human, I was splattered with blood on the ground

I’ve always been the strong one but you’ve pulled me into a world  
Where strong means much more than comforting you  
Feeling the wave of your guilt and want and fear, repressed  
Kaneki, from the puddle of red on the ground, from a million miles away

You don’t have to hold in your pain  
You don’t have to kill yourself trying to be noble or be kind  
Sometimes things just hurt and I’m not scared of what you call ugly  
Take it out on me  
Kaneki, I don’t mind

I’m right here  
Do what you need to make you feel alright  
I’m impulsive and you know  
But I wouldn’t regret it if you gave me scars

What was I supposed to do when you saw me in bandages  
On that bed and you cried so much  
Damn it, I want to tell you, I’m screaming  
I’m awake   
And you can’t leave-  
But you’re so scared you’ll hurt me I don’t open my eyes until you’re gone

And I’m left kneeling on the ground feeling so powerless  
Crying like a kid  
Hoping and reaching and running forward  
How do I find you, how do I save you  
How do I coax your hand from over your eye

I’ve gotten to know Nishiki-senpai’s girlfriend pretty well, I’ll have you know  
I think it’s nice you said I was to you what she was to him  
She says she hopes you’ll come back to my side but  
No regrets, I’m not good at being patient  
I’ll run into the fire to find you again

From so far away where it seems impossible to reach  
Laying in bed googling things that will get me on a watch list  
They really wouldn’t have let me into the CCG if they looked at my phone  
Oh boy, no they would not

_Can humans turn into ghouls  
One eyed ghouls  
History of ghouls  
How do kagune work  
Ghoul anatomy and regeneration  
20th ward ghoul predation July  
How to hack government records  
CCG records eyepatch  
How often do ghouls need to eat  
Spontaneous white hair  
Historical human-ghoul cooperation  
Where can you get injured without dying_

It’s ok Kaneki, I was on incognito  
I bet Takatsuki Sen gets away with googling this shit though so  
I don’t know what she writes  
Probably porn, yeah probably vore porn  
You teaching that girl to read with porn, Kaneki????

Yeah, I know I’m a simp  
But Kaneki, I’m laughing to myself  
Because dude, it’s so surreal  
You’re a ghoul, a one eyed ghoul  
With, like, tentacles and everything  
I want to see it like it’s real

You’re probably way stronger than me now  
That doesn’t seem right, I smile  
If I tried to jump on you, you wouldn’t fall  
You’d catch me  
No fair  
And I could smile into mismatched eyes and you’d see 

I’m not scared of anything you are  
I could make jokes in bad taste and make you cringe  
So you’d see there was nothing wrong  
And I’m blushing, yeah I’m blushing and what about it  
You look like a porn star  
And I’m laughing so it’s legally a joke

But seriously  
I’m here  
It’s stupid but I’m trying so hard  
To know what you need, to know my best friend  
I don’t want you to be hurt in a way I can’t see  
I don’t want you to hide from me

I don’t want to take down the posters  
But I know now it’s what you need  
I guess you wouldn’t want people to see the same face   
The black haired missing and the white haired wanted  
I’m not going to stop looking for you  
I’ll just do it myself  
So you don’t get hurt

And all I can do is sneak glances at the messages I carry from the CCG  
And pretend not to be listening when I overhear them call you monsters  
While waving around your organs in suitcase  
Bragging of their kills  
Stand there and smile and pretend I’m not in love with their killer

A thousand years ago back in June  
I wouldn’t dream of a single thing I know now  
You’re not monsters, don’t you live and love and hurt  
Just like everyone else  
And the CCG covers their eyes

“I fought the eyepatch back a few months ago,” a man with black hair said  
When I was in the background sorting papers  
“And he was… it was odd  
Because I hit him and he didn’t try to block  
But he was like a kid with that one eyed mask  
His depth perception was way off so I hit him over and over

There wasn’t anything else to do  
Yeah, I got some injuries, the kid bit me,”   
He clutched his shoulder  
“But when he did it he cried  
And he said ‘please don’t make me a murderer’...  
He said there shouldn’t be a war

And I thought maybe I was doing the wrong thing,”  
He fingered a cross on a chain  
“But I saw him again last week.  
I was wrong.”

Kaneki, it wasn’t your fault, I swear  
You didn’t want to fight  
You shouldn’t have to fight  
I see you screaming in the dark  
I’m coming, just hold on  
Hold on to me  
You don’t have to run

I want to hold you in the dark  
Heart to heart, hand in hand, I want to see you with my palms  
I want you to be the only thing I see  
I want to see your phantom smile again, please  
Because you’re not a ghost  
And you deserve to live

I want to dry your tears and make you coffee and know you again  
To see your whole world and know your ghoul friends  
They all seem so nice  
And I’ve known them without you  
But we’re all just staring out in the wind at your silhouette in the distance

I’m selfish and selfless all twined together  
I don’t want you to be sad if I’m hurt  
But I don’t want to be alone  
You probably think you’re saving me with your stupid emo stance  
Running from who you love and fighting till you can’t cry

You need to cry  
Cry on me  
It hurts trying to reach you when it feels   
As if I’m running to catch up to you fighting with wings in the sky  
I’m not the only one doing so

Touka’s lovely, but Kaneki, I never wanted her  
When we sat down and talked it felt so wrong  
Your absence hovering there like a ghost  
All we said was your name  
And she has wings like you, Kaneki

But she knows I’m the only one  
Who could reach you now

So I’m probably the last place you wanted me to be now, Kaneki  
I’m in the middle of the sky without wings  
I found my way into your fight in dusk, blue red and purple  
In the cold, in the dark of night it’s where you are  
I’ll not regret it

From the kid in bright colors riding a bike and smiling to your voice  
If this is where I have to go to find you  
To give you color  
So dreadfully far from home

It’s stupidly romantic, how alive the world is with my heart beating so fast  
Not knowing what my ending will be  
I feel like I’m in one of those epic movies  
That you love to watch but would never want to be in  
Those movies that define love so tragically beautiful

I don’t care  
If this is what our story is  
If this is what it means to be there for you  
To give you what you wanted so badly  
I want a life with you there  
Reaching out a hand and spreading light with my fingers

Aching in depth, the moments I want so small-  
My best friend, my light, my smile, everything I’m not  
Take off your eyepatch and bear your pain  
Let me run my thumb over it and pull it away

Lay your head on my shoulder  
Tell me if it hurts  
Tell me if you need me, in any way  
I’ll hold out my hand and pull you up  
Let go of everything you’re holding in

And so large-  
Kaneki, do you know they used to worship ghouls  
As a compliment to humankind, back in ancient China  
Or one of those old places, I can’t recall  
That took away the dead and used them to sustain life

They lived peacefully  
They loved each other  
I don’t know why people have forgotten that  
If I loved you neither of us would be hurt

You wanted that so badly, didn’t you, but they made you forget too  
I want a happy ending where I can bring you home to the place you’re loved  
I’ll find you and I won’t let you get hurt again  
I’ll know what to do if you’re hurt bad

And I won’t let you hide anything from me  
I don’t care, I’ve grown used to the idea, I’m not uncomfortable  
So you don’t need to be either  
Just don’t starve yourself  
Don’t feel evil

You can fall asleep in my lap  
I won’t be scared to see the forms of you  
You can live in a world where you don’t have to pretend  
To be anything other than you.

It’s bright and warm in my head where I see it  
And I’ll make this world for you even if it means it’s the end  
In a CCG uniform running ever forward  
And forward into the dark and blood spatters the ground  
You’ve been hurt worse, though I’m not the same as you  
So I go on

I’m so scared  
You’re staining the snow pink  
Like you might never get up reaching for your home with one hand  
And in the dark I grasp at your torso and haul you up  
Weak breath leaking from my lungs

And I carry you, damn, Kaneki, you’re not this heavy, I swear  
But I’m holding you and there’s blood between our hearts pressed together  
As gently as I can pulling you out of the snow  
Lay you down and stand up and pull the mantle from your shoulders  
I’ll be strong for you, as long as I can

I don’t know how you managed to hold it so long  
And I’m not built for this, kaneki, I’m just a human  
In the world you tried to keep me from, I could lie but I knew I wouldn’t make it  
But without it you look so soft  
So soft and sad and I’m almost light even holding it shaking

I’ll be your strength, Kaneki, I’ll give you a nice lie for a minute  
It hurts  
I don’t turn on the light, in the cafe, and your chest rises and falls  
With the rhythm of my heart  
I pour coffee but damn it, why am I trying to do it in the dark

SLowly, I'll do it slowly, and it's making me tired  
I told him not to tell you but your boss, that nice old man Yoshimura  
He was surprised but I told him I knew  
I asked him to teach me  
How to make it... for you

I can't find those cubes you use and  
In the dark, brown and red are the same  
I know what's dripping in  
Fuck it, I let it, trying not to let my hands shake  
It won't do any good on the floor

You've really done a number on the morbidity of my jokes  
But I guess really I've always been like that  
I laugh to myself, lightly, quiet in the dark  
Hideyoshi Nagachika's greatest hits

I once asked you if you'd eat a girl you liked, if you were a ghoul  
And now it's hysterical, shaking the cup, I'm doubling over  
You said you didn't like her that much  
Damn, Kaneki, how do I measure up?  
...Why am I so happy

Your face so calm and vulnerable, eyepatch gone, it's good  
You're awake  
In the quietest storm  
And this is me desperate to make this as beautiful as it can be  
Because I've come so damn far  
I know I've gone the world for you

And you're finally here  
I tasted the coffee but it was a bad idea, I don't know why I did  
But it will be good for you, that's good  
Waiting for you to see me

I'm selfish and selfless  
I want to make the smile last  
...I'm making quite a mess here, aren't I?  
And I ignore it  
And hope you don't see

In this world for a second I'll make you  
I've found you  
I'm here to save you  
I want to help

Your eyes open and you're so lost  
Grimacing in a smile  
It's beautiful, it really is  
Crimson and obsidian and wreathed in white  
You're crying, you're smiling  
And that's the world

It's all I need, holding tight trying to be everything for you  
Baring my heart and holding it out dripping blood on the floor  
Because isn't it the most romantic thing I could do  
Kaneki, I love you,   
I try to make my smile say for me

And when your eyes widen I'm determined to be an angel, to take your pain  
I pick up the coffee and it smells metallic  
Pay no mind to the stain on my uniform  
I'm here  
I'm here  
I'm here

For you

Letting the stars come in and light flood this lovely place  
Keeping the loose, given smile on my face, looking up and holding out the coffee  
 _My life for yours?_  
"Yo, Kaneki." I give myself to the crying broken thing, fire in the snow  
"Let's go home."


	3. Within Those Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this one's actually both hide and kaneki i just had to split it because idk i do what I want

WITHIN THOSE WORDS

_Are you eating alright?_  
That question-  
You’re walking ahead of me crossing the bridge  
And the cars racing below become deafening in my ears  
Everything stops because

You meant it, you must have meant it-  
I know you meant it in the way it would have been  
Sitting in a cafeteria and smiling at me holding a soda  
And I’d be eating… a salad or something  
I could barely imagine now

But you’re worried  
And I  
Don’t know how to tell you how far I am away  
Intentional, it seems, as I stare into eyes that are  
Far too intelligent for me to hide from but you wouldn’t-  
Say that if you-

Please don’t  
See me in the dark  
Not knowing if the answer could be yes or no because  
In this world away you can’t see what I was in the rain  
And I’m glad you didn’t because I don’t know what I’d do

If you saw  
The blood in my mouth and the tears on my face and  
The eyepatch on the wrong eye, a life I beg for you  
Not to see  
This part of me  
That tries so hard not to fall on the other side of the war

That the truth was something you couldn’t excuse  
I don’t want to, Hide, if I had any other choice  
It’s a nightmare  
And I can’t let you in because if you do  
What if you got hurt

_It’s better to be hurt than hurt others_

How could I tell you  
What I saw when you lay bleeding in the alley and  
I know you’d never smile  
Not at me  
If you knew  
But you don’t  
And I can’t

And you’re so worried about me  
You want me to take care of myself  
Like you don’t even see how I hold my eye  
Try to believe I still deserve your smile  
And press a hand to my chin and hope you don’t see

You’re trying to protect me but you  
Now I see  
How fragile you are  
Beautiful and bright and human  
I don’t want to be  
The monster that could break you

No  
Hide  
I haven’t but I won’t tell you  
And I’ll lie with a face like an open book  
Because if the answer yes was the truth  
I wouldn’t deserve you

You take my face in your hands  
Your hands aren’t soft but they’re sweet  
And warm on my skin but it’s ice  
I can’t believe anything you say  
Because you believe everything I say

You can tell me you love me all you want  
But all I’ll do is cry  
Behind a clean white eyepatch.

. . . . . 

_Are you eating alright, Kaneki?_  
I ask it, but I know  
And I give you an innocent smile  
Like I’m just asking you to eat a good breakfast  
Maybe some eggs or fruit, chomp those leafy greens  
But I’m not

I said it with all intention  
I’m holding my arms above my head and asking it light  
I mean it anyway, Kaneki, and I know  
All of what that means

And I turn to face you and you freeze  
Freeze right up like you’re caught red handed  
With the wind ruffling your tame black hair  
Love ya, Kaneki but I don’t ever know  
How you managed to make the lead in a play

You’re shit at acting man  
And I mean it in the best way  
Or maybe I’m simply stuck looking at you so much  
Maybe you are good and I’m just too close to miss it

The badly disguised expression that betrays pain  
The face that tries desperately to hide  
The blood inside your mouth  
But I know

And I didn’t tell you  
Because if you knew  
That I’d known the whole time  
In all your fucking glory, Kaneki

Looming over me torn mad with hunger   
Calling my name and pulling me closer dressed in red  
The eye under that patch dripping tears  
Black and crimson glowing like a beacon in the alley  
If you knew I saw it you wouldn’t know what to do but run

You should have known I’d have hugged you  
You should know I would have let you  
And I couldn’t hate you  
If you were a thousand types of monster  
You should have told me

When you awoke in that hospital so alone  
You’d have to be daft to think I’d care  
You’re my best friend, and you’re…  
And I wouldn’t ever leave you behind

But I don’t know what to do  
But ask you this  
Smiling, because I always do  
The question holding so much buried in your face  
Because though you don’t realize-

I’d be there for you.  
If ‘eating right’ means you’ll have blood on your hands  
If you have to give up your innocence to survive  
If you get lost and don’t want to be found  
Don’t think I wouldn’t follow  
No matter what it did to me.

If you wanted I’d hold your hand  
If it got too hard  
I’ll try to tell you with that smile  
But you don’t want me to see  
How bad you need it

Because you answer yes.  
And you smile  
And you’re holding your damn chin  
And you don’t know you’re not alone  
When I take your face in my hands  
You can’t tell that I love you

I really do

I’ll learn to make you coffee, Kaneki  
I’ll learn what I need to do  
To help you  
Because you try to lie and pretend you’re not crying   
But you don’t need to wear that eyepatch around me  
Please cry onto me.


	4. Monstrosity and Kindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok but like i just. i just. i know manga fans always yell about why tf did kaneki go to aogiri in the anime but i think it actually makes sense so like here take this as explanation  
> also well i guess i really am just making shit up about naki idk if there's actual real backstory i'm missing here but whatever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're here for the hidekane you can skip this it's like literally just me thinking about kaneki

MONSTROSITY AND KINDNESS

The mantle is heavy.  
Knowing what I’ve done, knowing I’ll do it again.  
Standing upright walking on stains of blood  
Holding my head to the sky, bearing the red eye and closing the grey.

Did you hear about Kantai?  
It’s he supposed to be insanely strong?  
But wasn’t he the one that-  
Yeah.  
Rumor is that he ate boss Yamori.  
__Kakuja.

And I walk knowing I make the monsters fear  
Dressed knowing I wouldn’t recognize myself  
Hair a thin snowy white betraying it all  
That in a dark room looking into their boss’s eyes  
I died.

Kantai. Let’s go.  
The stone faced brother of the winged girl  
Who saved what used to be me  
His allegiance one that knows  
I hoped for a false peace.

I belong with them now  
In the darkened hard cold hiding instead  
What’s left in us of humanity.  
I needed a thousand cries of pain to lift those rose tinted lenses  
And see that my eye behind them was crimson red.

I could not be anywhere else  
My piece is too broken now to try to fit into the peace of Anteiku  
So I fall in disgrace and can only stand in front of Aogiri’s dark  
Knowing that they’ve all had a taste of that chamber  
But I was made a seven course meal  
So I ate it.

Standing perched in the wind atop a building  
A venomous spider leaping down intercepting flashing blue red lights  
I am not the boy who was six months ago human  
Who smiled and apologized and believed there was a way out  
Reaching for the light, I drop my hand and let it go  
I am not Kaneki Ken.

Eyepatch.  
The ghoul who emerged out of the mist and stood  
Who Aogiri’s boss tried to break  
And lost his life when he succeeded.  
I shed my chains and emerged in all the terror I tried to keep inside  
I am strong, and they follow me.

So in the violent night I embody my demons  
Fully and completely without looking back  
Allowing bright red spears to crush the black and white humans  
Breaking the shielded things on the other side of the night  
Flashes of light catching the truck’s bars torn apart  
Flames erupting in a beauty of colors I cannot see.

Every trace of the boy in the missing posters has disappeared.  
The bright thing in the blue sweatshirt holding a book  
Staring ahead with a smile so blissfully unaware of the future  
I am the infamous one and I embrace their fear  
Become the bruised nails, whitened hair, breaking fingers, scars made me stronger.  
Not the protected doll trying to retain his beauty

I no longer shiver at the cold, though more of me is bare than ever before.

In hot breath killing a human driving the truck there is ugliness  
And I let it invade my bones, I do not run  
My guilt is the strength that with a shadowed face brings the highway down  
My pain the agony that rends the metal apart to set Naki free  
Blooming red flowers like tears at my feet, blown in the wind  
Of helicopters and sirens and snow I stain.

Ugliness is the way my body screams out numbers  
Clinging to sentience through the torture of the fight  
Shaping my strength from the chains that adorned my body  
Recognizing something identical in the crying, burning man  
Laughing and screaming and pulling down a finger in a _crack_.

_Boss, boss, I’m on fire!  
Yamori-_  
He cries in a high panic, lashing out  
And Ayato and I will try to hold him but when he says it  
I just stare  
Watching this cracked ghoul crying out for the man who cracked me open.

In the days of Anteiku I’d seen Touka kill, and I’d seen her cry  
And I saw her find regret.  
Regret in the smallest thing, though she’d known she was right  
On the wizened finger of the white haired officer  
The officer who tried to kill a child after both her parents  
A ring.

There was no ring on Jason’s bloodstained hands  
But this, he’d left behind  
When in his checkered hall I made him count  
My pale scarred hand gripping his throat  
Open wounds dizzy with the poison in the syringe  
Feeling the tremor up my arm as I knelt over him and ate.

Saving Naki I cannot truly say I’ve done  
Not saving the torturer from prison  
When standing above him I know myself to be the murderer of his dreams  
And no part of me will let regret exist because I do not  
The man asking and clinging to us and calling me savior  
And all but him know it was me that tasted his blood

_Where is Yamori?_  
Tears, clear and plain and undisguised, falling over the god of my death  
When I stand with the people I once tried to fight  
Stare with the rest in gritty intimacy as he falls to the dirtied ground  
I don’t know why I do it

Naki, he broke in a different way  
But he bears the same scars  
I could only admit I’d fount patterns of within myself.  
Hypocritically twisting in desperation  
Reversing into the same as what Jason had been

Growing accustomed to the familiar he’d been desperate not to be alone  
Clinging to the same one who’d inflicted that desperation  
Because he was the only one who could understand  
What had been done  
I see him with eyes decorated with bruises

It seems so delicate in hands only good for breaking  
To be with a stoic face under a monster’s mask  
Leaning down carefully and laying a hand over his  
He was scrambling for chalk and too distraught by Jason to write  
“Here.”  
ヤモリ

Neat and calm on the bloodstained concrete  
Where I knelt and smiled and drowned in his gore  
In every ugliness a mourning compassion, forgiveness  
A monster who’s given up doing the least he could  
To atone for something he once would have lamented.

Peace is an unattainable ideal  
For I know the petals will always be stained red  
But in the dark I place white flowers on my corpse  
And hold close to mine a bloody heart

Only still beating through virtue of the fight  
Walking with my head held high only under the moon  
And no tear shed for my crimes I’d be burned for in the sun I lost  
In resigned duty to protect the lovers of that assassinated heart.


End file.
